The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (W W Norton & Company; 1998)

BRITAIN AND THE OTHERS^219

the virtues that have promoted economic and material progress. They

represent a marked deviation from earlier social and political arrange­

ments; and it is not a coincidence that the first industrial nation came

closest earliest to this new kind of social order.

To begin with, Britain had the early advantage of being a nation. By
that I mean not simply the realm of a ruler, not simply a state or po­
litical entity, but a self-conscious, self-aware unit characterized by com­
mon identity and loyalty and by equality of civil status.^6 Nations can
reconcile social purpose with individual aspirations and initiatives and
enhance performance by their collective synergy. The whole is more
than the sum of the parts. Citizens of a nation will respond better to
state encouragement and initiatives; conversely, the state will know
better what to do and how, in accord with active social forces.^7 Nations
can compete.
Britain, moreover, was not just any nation. This was a precociously
modern, industrial nation. Remember that the salient characteristic of
such a society is the ability to transform itself and adapt to new things
and ways, so that the content of "modern" and "industrial" is always
changing. One key area of change: the increasing freedom and security
of the people. To this day, ironically, the British term themselves sub­
jects of the crown, although they have long—longer than anywhere—
been citizens. Nothing did more for enterprise. Here is Adam Smith:

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when

suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle,

that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on

the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred im­

pertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often in­

cumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always

more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its secu­

rity. In Great Britain industry is perfectiy secure; and though it is far from

being perfecdy free, it is as free or freer than in any other part of Europe.^8

How far to push back the origins of English social precocity is a

matter of historical dispute. One scholar would go back to the Mid­

dle Ages (pre-1500) and what he calls the rise of individualism. This

was a society that shed the burdens of serfdom, developed a popula­

tion of cultivators rather than peasants, imported industry and trade

into the countryside, sacrificed custom to profit and tradition to com-